吞
tūn HSK6

swallow

Phonosemantic compound. 口 represents the meaning and 天 represents the sound.

Components

口
口 Meaning component
kǒu, kou mouth
天
天 Sound component
tiān, tian sky

Character Evolution

Seal form
Seal Shuowen ~100 AD
Clerical form
Clerical Western Han 202 BC-9 AD
Clerical form
Clerical Eastern Han 25-220 AD
Clerical form
Clerical Three Kingdoms (Cao Wei) 222-280 AD
Regular Modern

Historical Pronunciations

Middle ChineseOld ChineseGloss
Baxter-Sagartthenl̥ ˤən(surname)
thonl̥ ˤənto swallow
Zhengzhangqʰl'iːn
qʰl'ɯːn
Unicodetən

說文解字

咽也。从口天聲。

Sources

Readings & variants
Unicode
Historical pronunciations
Baxter-SagartZhengzhang Shangfang
Historical images
Academia Sinica
Etymology
Shuowen Jiezi (說文解字)